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Major construction has finished, and seawater has been circulating through the Yanonali Street plant as workers fine-tune its components. The state permit to operate it came May 2.

Water resources manager Joshua Haggmark cautioned that all parts of the plant have to demonstrate that they’re operating together perfectly before the plant can come online. The city and state also have to be comfortable with the desalinated water’s quality.

“The staff are very optimistic about getting operating,” he said. “But there are a lot of challenges. This is an incredibly complicated facility, and it has many different processes that all have to get along and be working uniformly.”

“It could happen next week that everything is working, but it could take longer,” he added.

Talks with Montecito

Though the big day is approaching, negotiations have stalled between the city and the Montecito Water District, which has been looking to purchase 1,250 acre-feet a year of desal water under a long-term agreement.

Dyer said the two sides had developed good compromises and basic terms at the staff level, but the MWD board declined to pursue the next phase of negotiations and did not want to fund a new pipeline that would help convey desal water.

The city has since stopped planning for the pipeline, Dyer said.

The MWD board last discussed the project in March and had concerns over the costs and financial contributions Santa Barbara wanted it to cover as well as the terms of a deal.